Alison Barrows-Young (ALBY)

“She Is my Sister” Oil on Canvas

Focusing on landscape and figurative subject matter, ALBY presents a profound and realistic look into humanity, making visible our society’s internal demons. In her figurative work, she plays with form, color, and anatomy to illustrate underlying aspects of the human condition, creating a strong connection between social activism and her artistic practice.

Through her work, she expresses thoughts and feelings that challenge viewers to question what they see while opening a conversation that can lead to conscious awareness. In her work, figures and forms are painted with swaths of vibrant colors rendered with narrow outlines. Backgrounds also play an essential role in the compositions, as they are used to create spatial dimensions

ALBY’s landscape work draws inspiration from the natural world and the myriad colors, tones, and light offered by constant atmospheric changes. She is inspired by living in the isolated northern woods of the Pacific Northwest and aims to share her concern about environmental conservation issues through visually stimulating imagery that reflects the awe-inspiring beauty of our planet. 

Currently, ALBY is choosing to use icon art formats to shed light on our global refugee crisis through carving, wood burning, and layering of metallic and natural colored inks. Her themes are sensitive to the many challenges the world faces. Focusing on and promoting peace is a signature concept found in all of her paintings. ALBY captures a spiritedness in her depictions of landscapes and human subjects by combining naturalistic detail and stylistic expression.

“I find the portrayal of human beings fascinating as it directs my observations outward, as well as inward. Ultimately, for me, it is a way to come to understand the self. As in science, the study of representational art begins by developing an understanding of the physical and empirical truths discovered and noted through time and then naturally wanders into the realm of consciousness, subconsciousness, philosophy, and psychology.

Through tenacity, one develops a familiarity with every rule, every theory, and technique that eventually reveal their poetic nature. Control and command become fractal-like, duplicating, patterning, and spiraling into one and other, spontaneously calling forth corresponding and heightened awareness, expression, and imagination. 

Depicting the human figure is, for me, a good example of that flow and, therefore, has always been an area of art that compels me. Although I often turn to other engrossing subject matter, I always return to drawing and painting people when I hear the call to pursue our humanity’s nature. Throughout my career as an artist, the various bodies of work I have developed intermittently began or ended with a study of the human figure.”

– ALBY, Alison Barrows-Young